@article{melchert2001bukhari,
  source = {jstor},
  ISSN = {0003-0279},
  abstract = {Norman Calder has questioned the attribution of al-Tarikh al-kabir to al-Bukhari (d. 256/870). Quotations from Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi and al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, together with comparisons among the rijal works of Bukhari, suggest that al-Tarikh al-kabir was one of Bukhari's last works, subject to some correction and rearrangement after his death. It cannot have been retrospectively derived from Bukhari's Sahih, as Calder thought, yet neither can it have been the basis of the Sahih, for it omits to mention fourteen percent of the men in the Sahih and mentions personal evaluations of only six percent of all its subjects. Its principal function seems to have been to identify traditionists by name. Inasmuch as it bespeaks sole reliance on isnad analysis to sort strong and weak reports, al-Tarikh al-kabir may represent a particular Khurasani tendency in hadith criticism. More certainly, it represents the professionalization of hadith science as against the amateurism evident behind Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Ilalwa-marifat al-rijal.},
  author = {Melchert, Christopher},
  copyright = {Copyright 2001 American Oriental Society},
  journal = {Journal of the American Oriental Society},
  jstor_articletype = {Full Length Article},
  jstor_date = {200101/200103},
  jstor_formatteddate = {Jan. - Mar., 2001},
  month = {jan},
  number = {1},
  pages = {7--19},
  publisher = {American Oriental Society},
  title = {Bukhari and Early Hadith Criticism},
  url = {http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0279%28200101%2F03%29121%3A1%3C7%3ABAEHC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I},
  volume = {121},
  year = {2001},
}